More Videos
- Something Good About California And Cursing TV Anchors
- American Idol's Sour Notes
- Meet "Fake" Jim Cramer
- Mr. Potato Head Update
- Ethanol, Chickens (Headless) And Paula Abdul: Your Emails
- Disney's Version Of Mr. Potato Head And Brolin Does Bush
- Race For White House Now A Game Of (Headless) Chicken?
- Northrop Radio Ads; Plus: Readers Think I'm an Idiot!
- Ethanol Fights Back
- Star Wars Fans Get Their 15 Minutes! Plus: Your eMails
- Homeowner "Walkaways": Are They Fact Or Fiction?
- MLB All-Star Home Run Derby: I Really Like This Promotion
- Tata's 100 Miles Per Gallon Bet
- Your First Move For Thursday May 15th
- Web Extra: Ship Shape Trade
- Sudden Death: Athenahealth, Alcoa and More
- Emerging Money: Turkey
- Mad Mail: Back in the Saddle with Garmin?
- Pops & Drops: Nike, Whole Foods...
- Lightning Round OT: Ameritrade, Deere and More
- New App Puts a Price on Users' Names
- Bernanke Stresses Need For Capital Cushion at Banks
- US Economy Shows More Weakness in Manufacturing
- Bonds Hold Gains on Weak Economy, Despite Philly Fed Index
- Trump Sells Palm Beach House for $100 Million
- Rough Economy Now Hitting CEO Paychecks
- Foreclosure Fallout: Condo Owners Pay for Neighbors
- European Earnings: Beer, BT Shine
- Gutierrez: US, China Need to Fight Protectionism
- BT Buoys Flat Markets; Barclays Weighs
- New App Puts a Price on Users' Names
ETHANOL FIGHTS BACK
Everyone is blaming ethanol for everything. Producers have gone from being heroes to zeroes. On Friday, I have three stories you can see here, showing what it's like to be in that industry now. Two years ago, corn was $2 a bushel and margins were $2 a gallon — and everyone and their brother wanted in.
Now corn is $6 and margins are 10 cents — or negative, for some operators.
The ethanol industry's defense is this: Don't blame us for $125 oil. They say ethanol is actually making gasoline cheaper (it's also subsidized by more than 50 cents a gallon).
And the industry claims ethanol's corn needs are only responsible for 2-3 percent of food inflation. You can't blame rice and wheat prices on ethanol. (Well, maybe some wheat, as farmers switched to corn.)
One of the more compelling arguments I heard was against lifting the tariff against cheaper Brazilian ethanol. Brian Sherbacow, former COO of the now-bankrupt Ethanex, says that would only make us dependent on yet another foreign country for energy, which would defeat the whole purpose of our national investment in homegrown biofuels.
(Contd.)
____________________________________
Ethanol Players:
Pacific Ethanol [PEIX
Loading...
(%)
]
Verasun Energy [VSE
Loading...
(%)
]
Archer-Daniels-Midland [ADM
Loading...
(%)
]
____________________________________
Make no mistake, while corn sits in the silos, ethanol producers feel they're sitting in missile silos, as everyone from environmentalists to Big Oil to non-corn farmers to angry consumers launch verbal attacks. What a difference two years makes.
Questions? Comments? Funny Stories? Email
Del.icio.us
Digg It
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes